Zirngiebel House, Needham -- Heavy Snow

This painting depicts the Joshua Lewis House (built 1776) in Needham, Massachusetts. It is an impressionist "portrait" of a building that played an important role in the artist’s life. Wyeth’s grandfather, Denys Zirngiebel, lived in this house until his death in 1905; in 1921, Wyeth purchased the property from his uncle John Denys Zirngiebel and his family lived there until November, 1923. A Dec. 19, 1921, letter to Sidney M. Chase (Wyeth Family Archives) contains a pencil drawing of this exact view of the house. The Wyeth Family Archives also includes a black and white photograph of the house after a snowstorm from the same vantage point, which clearly relates to the painting and suggests Wyeth used the photograph as a resource.

The present title is purely descriptive, and no archival material has come to light to suggest what title—if any—the artist may have given the work. Andrew Wyeth recalled that his father painted this picture during the time the N. C. Wyeth family lived in Needham, hence the dating. In the late 1920s Wyeth completed another view of the same house in a style reminiscent of Charles Burchfield’s work.